Bala karthiga M

One of the biggest (and least expected) beneficiaries of Machine Learning and Big Data, apart from the obvious manufacturing, healthcare, IT and Fintech sectors, has to be the entertainment industry.

When one thinks of analytics and entertainment – two huge brands come to the Top of Our Minds.

IMDb and Netflix.

Netflix is a pioneer in using Big Data analytics. They have always extrapolated user data and hit the lottery for almost all of their shows. One popular example that you’ve probably heard of is House Of Cards – the entire series was aired solely based on the big data results generated by customer preferences.

IMDb – Internet Movie Database – intelligently gives anybody the freedom to create new material, rate movies and even edit existing posts. IMDb boasts of a colossal collection of domain specific data. It lists more than 2.5 million movies and over FIFTY MILLION users.

Now, close your eyes, and just imagine. 2.5M movies, 50M users.

Imagine all the data that can be extrapolated from this database.

Imagine all the refinement Entertainment will get when it takes into account viewing habits, customer preferences, and cultural interests.

Imagine, if all this extrapolated data is fed into a robot, and it can predict box office revenue. Tweak a little advanced AI and ML into this robot – it can probably generate plots, or create characters, chalk out revenue generation plans, strategize distribution patterns, churn out casting predictions and when scripts are fed into this robot, it can probably fix general plot holes or certain basic level cliches.

We will be capable of creating hyper focused content for a hyper focused group of people.

There will  no longer be,

‘The audience is not mature enough for this story’ or

‘This if for Class A audience only’ or

‘Hey we will not allow you to release this movie cuz it offends us’ or

‘Hero super, but Padam Mokka’ –  kinda  excuses.

It will all be data-driven. It will be empirical. Easy to measure. Easy to forecast.

Rapid advances  in robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning  are actually making the analysis of entertainment data, more of a cakewalk. Entertainment is an industry that is driven strongly by fans and word of mouth.

Thus engagement becomes a key factor.

In tech terms –  Big Data is creating opportunities for driving this engagement and strategically influencing audience sentiments and leveraging the potential of their emotions.

The role of the audience has also drifted drastically over the past decade.

UGC [User Generated Content] is such a powerful thing.

Previously, rotten tomatoes and eggs were thrown at the screen. Now, it all happens in the digital space. We throw them online – blogs and twitter and Facebook feeds.

Get the point here? The audience isn’t just consuming your content anymore. They’re creating content as well.

We live in a tricky transition period where the Venn diagram of your target audience and your potential competition is a circle! 

Again, with the help of emerging tools in analytics and machine learning, we will be able to process these UGC data better, and the stake holders of a movie will be empowered with the ability to make richly informed decisions.

For a while now, it’s no secret that Social Media Buzz can predict the box office successes of movies. It’s possible for people with bare minimal knowledge in analytics to observe the trending of a movie and several automated tools can be used, thanks to AI and ML, to formulate customized strategies in order to make sure that one piece of art gets a favorable positioning in the market.

AI and ML tools can help capture, fix and restore all the missing links in the relationship between creator and consumer.

Forget the obsolete quad segmentation technique where you take such insignificant details like Male; Female; Age Above 18; Age below 18.

Forget panels and polls. They’re such a blunt instruments that only end up wasting your time and resources.

When you go quad segmentation, all that you’re doing here is basic level profiling of the audience that even a middle grade school kid can. The modern audience is much more demanding than the quad segment approach.

What you need now is a bot that can be built with computers, and render you into the fine details – by picking up the trail of digital breadcrumbs that your audience leaves online, and use ML to build them into predictive models that accurately forecasts what will work and what won’t.

With Big Data Analytics we can convert massive quantities of emotions and reactions generated by movie-crazy fans into strategic, actionable insights of what works and what doesn’t for the market and the business.

Entertainment isn’t just art anymore!

It’s all Advanced Data Science and Sophisticated AI Tech.

It’s no longer an option.

In my opinion, ‘Going Digital’ is in itself a very outdated practice.

People involved with Film and Media now have to go beyond going digital.  

Production Companies and Industry Leaders have to invest a decent amount of their budget in collaborating with leading Big Data startups and Data Scientists in order to make sure that they create a fool proof market for their product.

Big Data and Big Entertainment were destined to meet. And it’s a love story with a happy ending.

❤